Transcriber's note: The words in {braces} are struck out in the
original text with alternatives above.]

THE JOVIAL PRIEST'S CONFESSION

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN OF WALTER DE MAPES, TIME OF HENRY II

I devise to end my days--in a tavern drinking,
May some Christian hold for me--the glass when I am shrinking,
That the cherubim may cry--when they see me sinking,
God be merciful to a soul--of this gentleman's way of thinking.

A glass of wine amazingly--enlighteneth one's internals;
'Tis wings bedewed with nectar--that fly up to supernals;
Bottles cracked in taverns--have much the sweeter kernels,
Than the sups allowed to us--in the college journals.

Every one by nature hath--a mold which he was cast in;
I happen to be one of those--who never could write fasting;
By a single little boy--I should be surpass'd in
Writing so: I'd just as lief--be buried; tomb'd and grass'd in.

Every one by nature hath--a gift too, a dotation:
I, when I make verses--do get the inspiration
Of the very best of wine--that comes into the nation:
It maketh sermons to astound--for edification.

Just as liquor floweth good--floweth forth my lay so;
But I must moreover eat--or I could not say so;
Naught it availeth inwardly--should I write all day so;
But with God's grace after meat--I beat Ovidius Naso.

Neither is there given to me--prophetic animation,
Unless when I have eat and drank--yea, ev'n to saturation,
Then in my upper story--hath Bacchus domination,
And Ph[oe]bus rushes into me, and beggareth all relation.

_Leigh Hunt._

LIMERICKS

There was an old man of Tobago,
Who lived upon rice, gruel and sago;
Till, much to his bliss,
His physician said this:
"To a leg, sir, of mutton, you may go."

There was an old soldier of Bister,
Went walking one day with his sister;
When a cow, at one poke,
Tossed her into an oak,
Before the old gentleman missed her.

There was a young man of St. Kitts
Who was very much troubled with fits;
The eclipse of the moon
Threw him into a swoon,
When he tumbled and broke into bits.

There was an old man who said, "Gee!
_I_ can't multiply seven by three!
Though fourteen seems plenty,
It _might_ come to twenty,--
I haven't the slightest idee!"

There was an old man in a pie,
Who said, "I must fly! I must fly!"
When they said, "You can't do it!"
He replied that he knew it,
But he _had_ to ge